Messages - Saction8

No need to get overexcited about the "right to bear arms." You have to remember that in Western democracies (especially America) the police maintains the public order with an iron hand. Just beacause you have a gun it does not mean that you will use it -- in fact, the majority of people get a gun "for the fun of it," as an insurance that were they attacked they'd be able to get back to the attacker. However, the possibility of being attacked in middle class neighborhoods is minimal and these people almost never put their guns to use. It is not like in some countries where there are virtually no laws and people set the record straight themselves. It is in these countries that the right to bear arms would prove detrimental. For instance, it is well-known that in ex-communist countries journalists are beaten randomly when they publish discrediting articles about a political figure of their country. Not to mention that even politicians themselves have been treated like * & ^ % in these countries (Russia, for instance). Intelligence services' agents have beaten political adversaries of their superiors so bad that they have nearly died; or their houses have come under heavy gun fire. Assassination attempts towards high level government figures are random even after so many years of trying to establish democratic societies.

I wouldn't blame them for posting this crap, santropez -- I mean, you can find weird stuff even on CNN -- take a look at this one LOL

New Yorkers stuck with syrupy smell, but can breathe easy

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The source of a mysterious maple syrup-like smell that has periodically blanketed New York is not a particularly aromatic pancake house but a New Jersey factory involved in the processing of fenugreek seeds, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Thursday. The sweet aroma first descended upon Manhattan and northern New Jersey in October 2005, initially triggering several building evacuations as well as concern the scent was physically harmful. Authorities from the Office of Emergency Management soon concluded it posed no danger to the public. The odor made several return appearances in subsequent years, each time confounding nostrils before vanishing as perplexingly as it arrived.

Comparing information about local wind speed, wind direction and air humidity against the locations of citizen complaints about the smell, officials from the city's Department of Environmental Protection narrowed down the potential source to four factories in northern New Jersey that produce food additives and fragrances. Last week, when several dozen residents of Upper Manhattan called to complain about the smell, the environmental department, having developed a new evidence gathering procedure, gathered air samples from each suspected source in canisters. Tests revealed the pungent perpetrator of that incident was a Hudson County facility owned by Frutorom, a company that develops and manufactures flavors for the food, fragrance and pharmaceutical industries.

The specific chemical agents responsible for the scent are esters, compounds "created by the reaction between an alcohol and an acid" during the processing of fenugreek seeds, according to Bloomberg. Toasted fenugreek seeds are often used in the production of artificial syrups and in the cuisines of a number of cultures. The mayor said New Jersey officials, who cooperated with New York in the investigation, had concluded that Frutorom had not violated any rules. He said New Yorkers will have to tolerate the syrup smell's occasional return, noting that it's a relatively benign odor. "All things considered I can think of a lot of things worse than maple syrup," he said.

It may seem "crap" and "weird stuff" to you, beyond aurora, but if you'd visit NYC even for a single day you'd easily notice this is indeed a serious issue to be dealt with!

I know it will sound strange to you, but New York City sucks greatly - and I'm not talking Brooklyn here (which we all know is ghetto) - I used to live temporarily near Central Park in a hotel-like apartment and I am telling you girls - they would pick up the trash once a week - that's right, ONCE PER WEEK - the whole place stunk (I'm sure you can imagine it!)

I'm sure that's an overstatement (exaggeration) - that's surely not the case, even in Brooklyn!

[…] most famously of all, waiters who rush about. All of these, he says, are slaves to other people's perceptions - 'the Other'. They are exhibiting mauvaise foi -- 'bad faith'. […] It is here that the waiter comes in:

Quote

His movement is quick and forward, a little too precise, a little too rapid. He comes toward the patrons with a step a little too quick. He bends forward a little too eagerly; his voice, his eyes express an interest a little too solicitous for the order of the customer. Finally there he returns, trying to imitate in his walk the inflexible stiffness of some kind of automaton while carrying his tray with the recklessness of a tight-rope walker by putting it in a perpetually unstable, perpetually broken equilibrium which he perpetually re-establishes by a light movement of the hand and arm ("Being and Nothingness") [1943]

Café de Flore172 Boulevard Saint-Germain, 75006 Paris

Stop by Café de Flore to indulge in Camus' 'local' after he had a falling out with Sartre and Beauvoir. Popular also among the surrealists, existentialists and la bande à Prevert, apparently Johnny Depp hangs out here too.

Senator Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have often drawn strong support in their political campaigns from African-American voters. While Obama seeks an edge with African-American voters, Clinton continues to shore up her support among women. Rutgers University Professor Ross Baker says Clinton's surprise win in last week's New Hampshire primary was largely a result of a last-minute shift in support for Clinton by women voters. "I think that she carries considerable advantages with her into the remaining primaries. She has lots of money and she obviously has gotten the support of women even more strongly, I think, than anybody had imagined," said Baker.

Clinton is seeking to become the first woman president, while Obama hopes to become the first African-American president. One new national poll shows Obama gaining on Clinton among Democrats, following his win in the Iowa caucuses and close second-place finish to Clinton in the New Hampshire primary. The Washington Post-ABC News poll has Clinton at 42%, followed by Obama at 37% and Edwards at 11%. Obama's share is up 14% since the same poll last month. A second poll by New York Times and CBS News showed Clinton with 42%, Obama with 27% and Edwards 11%.

basha, I just could not believe Dems were really going for Hillary - I mean, she was not serious enough, with all those lies and fake stories. Remember when she said in relation to her visit in 1996 in Bosnia, "I remember landing under sniper fire," in March 2008. "There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." News footage of the event, however, showed her claims to have been wide of the mark, and reporters who accompanied her stated that there was no sniper fire. Her account was ridiculed by ABC News as "like a scene from Saving Private Ryan".

I can't believe this country would appropriate a h e l l of a lot of money to an agency like NASA! Just imagine if all that money were used to better the lives of people on this planet, or this country, if you like! How much less misery would be?!

It's not that they don't get it, it's because they want the resources to be distributed disproportionately among people, that they go ahead and throw money to the toilet! It would be far too dangerous for the people in power to have the standard of living of the people they oppress raised even a little bit; because the latter would be able to think a bit more as to what it is that keeps them oppressed, poor and hungry! Question the very ideology that keeps the oppressors in power!

Take a look at this page from the website of Museum of Natural History - looks like fun, if you know what I mean

Space Tourism

Today, national agencies like NASA aren't the only ones taking on the challenge of space exploration. Many private companies are developing vehicles to ferry astronauts, private citizens, and cargo into space.

You've got to be kidding us, lawn! You obviously don't have the slightest idea what does it feel like t o kill. Here it is how researchers have described the whole process:

Concern about Being Able to Kill. Holmes' research indicates that one of the soldier's first emotional responses to killing is a concern as to whether, at the moment of truth, he will be able to kill the enemy or will "freeze up" and "let his buddies down." [...]

The Killing Stage: "Without even thinking." Usually killing in combat is completed in the heat of the moment, and for the modern, properly conditioned soldier, killing in such a circumstance is most often completed reflexively, without conscious thought. Being unable to kill is a very common experience. If on the battlefield the soldier finds himself unable to kill, he can either begin to rationalize what has occurred, or he can become fixated and traumatized by his inability to kill.

The Exhilaration Stage: "I had a Feeling of the Most Intense Satisfaction." The adrenaline of combat can be greatly increased by another high: the high of killing. What hunter of marksman has not felt a thrill of pleasure and satisfaction upon dropping his target? In combat this thrill can be greatly magnified and can be especially prevalent when the kill is completed at medium to long range. Fighter pilots, by their nature, and due to the long range of their kills, appear to be particularly susceptible to such killing addiction. For some combatants the lure of exhilaration may become more than a passing occurrence. A few may become fixated in the exhilaration stage and never feel remorse.

The Remorse Stage: A Collage of Pain and Horror. The tremendous and intense remorse and revulsion associated with a close-range kill is expressed in these words:

Quote

"... my experience, was one of revulsion and disgust... I dropped my weapon and cried... There was so much blood... I vomited... And I cried... I felt remorse and shame. I can remember whispering foolishly, "I'm sorry" and then just throwing up."

Whether the killer denies his remorse, deals with it, or is overwhelmed by it, it is nevertheless there, almost always. The killer's remorse is real, it is common, it is intense, and it is something that he must deal with for the rest of his life.

The Rationalization and Acceptance Stage: "It Took All the Rationalization I Could Muster." The next personal-kill response stage is a lifelong process in which the killer attempts to rationalize and accept what he has done. This process may never truly be completed. The killer never completely leaves all remorse and guilt beyond, but he can usually come to accept that what he has done was necessary and right. In personal accounts of those who have killed one may notice the use of specific words. At first, for instance, use of words such as "he" "him" and "his" shows the recognition of the killer's humanity. But then the enemy's weapon is noted, the rationalization process begins, and "he" becomes "the body" and ultimately the "gook." Once the process begins, irrational and irrelevant supporting evidence is gathered, and the possession of, say, U.S.-made shoes and a watch becomes a cause for depersonalization rather than identification.

So basically you are saying that there is this resistance to the whole thing and that even if they overcome it, it comes back to haunt them? Not sure if I am getting you here

administrator, when you say, "this resistance to the whole thing," don't you think you are being a bit too casual about such a serious thing as killing? Of course there is resistance, and then guilt haunting people for their entire lives, in case they overcome the resistance and actually kill someone.

Dashi - take the posts made here with a grain of salt - don't overanalyze, or even believe the info on a subject is accurate.

I find some very funny posts on this board - here it is another one from "know" - I am posting it here as that thread has been suspended (well, you can guess as to why - talks about DNA * & ^ % and the like - I mean, what the @ # ! * DNA has to do with law?!

Quote

Your mentioning of the binary notion and DNA reminded me of a very interesting discovery I read about some time ago:

Calculating that 0 + 0 = 0, 1 + 0 = 1, and 0 + 1 = 1 is normally no big deal. When the calculations are done in the lab using DNA molecules, however, these elementary manipulations look considerably more interesting. Researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City reported some years back that they have developed an algorithm that permits the use of single-stranded DNA reactions to add binary numbers. More impressively, they had the experimental evidence to back their scheme. Since 1994, when computer scientist Leonard M. Adleman of the University of Southern California first demonstrated the feasibility of a molecular approach to solving mathematical problems, researchers focused on finding ways to link mathematics and biochemistry to perform different kinds of computations. Their long-term hope is that DNA-based computers will eventually prove superior in speed, memory capacity, and energy efficiency over electronic computers for solving certain kinds of problems. Most research efforts have tried to take advantage of the enormous number of DNA molecules that can be packed into a small volume. Adleman, for example, solved a combinatorial problem by generating all the possible combinations as different strands of DNA, then searching for, isolating, and identifying the one strand representing the correct solution.

In contrast, Mount Sinai's Frank Guarnieri and Carter Bancroft have concentrated on developing a DNA-based addition algorithm, which demands only that the correct output be produced in response to specific inputs. Consequently, the addition operation requires a quite different model for the use of DNA in computing than that used previously for search procedures. A single strand of DNA consists of a chain of simpler molecules called bases, which protrude from a sugar-phosphate backbone. The four varieties of bases are known as adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), and cytosine (C). Any strand of DNA will adhere tightly to its complementary strand, in which T substitutes for A, G for C, and vice versa. For example, a single-stranded DNA segment consisting of the base sequence TAGCC will stick to a section of another strand made up of the complementary sequence ATCGG. The links between pairs of bases are responsible for binding together two strands to form the characteristic double helix of a DNA molecule.

The researchers first assigned 3-base units to letters of the alphabet, numerals, and punctuation marks.

Adding binary numbers, represented as strings of 1s and 0s, requires keeping track of the position of each digit and of any "carries" that come up when 1 is added to 1 to give the result 10. For example, adding 11 to 01 means starting with the digits farthest to the right of each number: 1 + 1 = 10, so 0 goes in the first place from the right, and 1 is carried over to the next column. When the carried digit is added to the two digits in the second position from the right (1 + 1 + 0), the result is 10, with 0 in the second position from the right and 1 in the third position to give the final answer 100.

1 1+ 0 1-------1 0 0

Converting this procedure into manipulations of DNA molecules demands the use of DNA sequences that not only represent strings of 0s and 1s but also allow for carries and the extension of DNA strands to represent the answers. In their DNA addition algorithm, Guarnieri and Bancroft use special sequences that encode the number in a given position (0 or 1) and its position from the right. For example, the first digit in the first position is given by two DNA strands, each consisting of a short sequence representing a "position transfer operator" (which carries information to the adjacent position), a short sequence representing the value of the digit (0 or 1), and a short sequence representing a "position operator." In their Science paper, Guarnieri, Bancroft, and Makiko Fliss supply DNA representations of all possible two-digit binary integers (00, 01, 10, 11), which can then be added in pairs. Adding such a pair involves four steps, in which the appropriate complementary sequences link up and strands are successively extended to make new, longer strands, finally yielding the correct output.

The researchers term this set of steps a horizontal chain reaction. Input DNA sequences serve as successive templates for constructing an extended result strand. Like a tape recording, the final strand encodes the outcomes of successive operations, yielding the digits of the answer in the correct order. The growing strand is also an active participant in the addition algorithm because the output strand for each operation (reaction) serves as the operator (primer) for the succeeding operation. Thus, the resulting DNA strand serves both as an operator that transfers information during the addition algorithm and as a tape that records the outcome of the algorithm. What they've done with the horizontal chain reaction is to start getting DNA molecules to communicate with each other. To test their algorithm in the lab, the team combined in a test tube the DNA strands representing the two numbers to be added, along with the chemicals needed for the strand extension reactions. In this way, they successfully determined the sums 0 + 0, 0 + 1, 1 + 0, and 1 + 1 in the form of DNA strands of the appropriate molecular size. The necessary biochemical procedures took about 1 or 2 days of lab work for each calculation.

Gustave Le Bon was a French social psychologist whose seminal study, "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind" (1896) led to the development of group psychology.

Sigmund Freud's "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego," (1922) based on a critique of Le Bon's work, led to further development in theories of group behavior in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Jacob L. Moreno was a psychiatrist, dramatist, philosopher and theoretician who coined the term "group psychotherapy" in the early 1930s and was highly influential at the time.

Kurt Lewin (1943, 1948, 1951) is commonly identified as the founder of the movement to study groups scientifically. He coined the term group dynamics to describe the way groups and individuals act and react to changing circumstances.

William Schutz (1958, 1966) looked at interpersonal relations from the perspective of three dimensions: inclusion, control, and affection. This became the basis for a theory of group behavior that sees groups as resolving issues in each of these stages in order to be able to develop to the next stage. Conversely, a group may also devolve to an earlier stage if unable to resolve outstanding issues in a particular stage.

Wilfred Bion (1961) studied group dynamics from a psychoanalytic perspective, and stated that he was much influenced by Wilfred Trotter for whom he worked at University College Hospital London, as did another key figure in the Psychoanalytic movement, Ernest Jones. He discovered several mass group processes which involved the group as a whole adopting an orientation which, in his opinion, interfered with the ability of a group to accomplish the work it was nominally engaged in. His experiences are reported in his published books, especially "Experiences in Groups." The Tavistock Institute has further developed and applied the theory and practices developed by Bion.

Bruce Tuckman (1965) proposed the four-stage model called Tuckman's Stages for a group. Tuckman's model states that the ideal group decision-making process should occur in four stages and later added a fifth stage for the dissolution of a group called adjourning.

M. Scott Peck developed stages for larger-scale groups (i.e., communities) which are similar to Tuckman's stages of group development.

You could have simply reminded us of Wikipedia where to find the information that you have pasted here.

I can't believe it, countryman, when people rely on Wikipedia as a primary source of research - the way Wikipedia works is that it makes a summary of the points that different people - which means in practice "just everybody" - have made on the subject. Think about it! You are guaranteed to find there a h e l l of a lot of * & ^ %!